“This was something new” – Palach Week 1989, when thousands first took to the streets to protest communism

The 20th anniversary of Jan Palach’s self-immolation brought many
thousands onto the streets for protests that had no precedent in communist
Czechoslovakia. Palach Week, as it became known, began on January 15 1989
and saw running battles between demonstrators and riot police. Hundreds
were arrested, among them top dissidents such as Václav Havel, and the
events are seen by some as foreshadowing the Velvet Revolution, 10 months
later.

Palach Week 1989, photo: Czech Television
There are many forms of protest, but few as radical as self-immolation,
especially when committed by a 20-year-old student with all of life’s
prospects ahead of him. Yet this is precisely what Jan Palach did on
Wenceslas Square in January 1969. While his act did not result in an
immediate resurgence of national uproar against the Soviet invasion of 1968
and the rust of normalisation that began setting in, it was seen by many as
an inspiration for the first mass protest twenty years later, which lay the
groundwork for the mobilisation of Czech society and the eventual November
revolution.

Until the final year of the communist regime, dissent remained an activity
of a relatively tight group of individuals. Although new movements such as
the Peace Club of John Lennon and Czech Children had sprung up and
Perestroika was forcing the Czechoslovak communist regime to seem more open
to societal discussion, the party was still remarkably staunch in its
commitment to keep to the old order, as opposed to many other eastern bloc
countries at the time.

Jana Marco, who was a member of the Charter 77 movement and one of the
organisers of what became known as Palach Week in, describes how she and
her compatriots perceived the situation going into January 1989.

“From today’s perspective I see it much more optimistically than
back
then. It was dreary and complicated. No one would have guessed the eventual
outcome and that November 1989 would come around. However, speaking for
myself, I was optimistic. In December 1989 there was a gathering on
Škroupovo Square in Prague’s Žižkov neighbourhood, where we were
allowed to meet up. It was the first permitted gathering in fact.

“Then it was just a short while before Christmas and Palach Week in
January, so it took place almost immediately after that. We were all
encouraged by that first gathering on Škroupovo Square. I was always an
optimist believing, that things would change and that what we were doing
had purpose.”

Yet as the chartists and other dissenting organisations were preparing for
the honoration of Palach’s sacrifice, Václav Havel received an
unexpected anonymous letter. Its author said that he intended to follow
Palach’s example and burn himself during the anniversary days.

“It’s true. We received this anonymous letter and we were about 90
percent certain that this was a police provocation - that the police want
to stop us from going through with any action. However, we had no way of
knowing for certain, so even if there was just a fraction of a chance that
this was a real letter and that someone was thinking of doing such a thing,
we knew we had to stop it. As the organisers, we discussed how we could
prevent this and ultimately Václav Havel spoke out on the foreign radio
broadcast, I believe it was Radio Free Europe, urging against such
action.”

Havel in fact first brought up the subject of a radio broadcast with one of
the primetime broadcasters of Czechoslovak Radio, which at the time was
under the control of the regime. However, he said he would do no such
thing.

One of the people who listened to Havel’s speech was Jakub Železný.
Today one of the country’s most popular news presenters on Czech
Television, in January 1989 he was a 15-year-old grammar school student. He
says that Jan Palach was a great hero for him and his friends.

“This name was something special. My parents were involved in the
1968
events. They discussed it with me and sometimes I heard the name Jan
Palach. The name is specific – Palach. It resonates. That is why, I
think, we young people were on the streets in 1989, because of this man’s
legacy. Because he did something absolutely specific, something we wanted
to understand. And he did it for us, for the next generations. That is why
lots of people involved in the Palach Week of 1989 were young
people.”

Jana Marco, photo: archive of Jana Marco
The chartists had agreed to honour Palach on Sunday, the January 15, a
day before the anniversary of Palach’s self-immolation. However, the
State Security service was expecting them and arrested the leaders on their
way to Wenceslas Square. Mrs. Marco was one of those taken by the police,
but she along with the others was released after being interrogated. The
next day, they agreed they would go to the statue of St. Wenceslas, close
to where Palach committed the act, individually, so as to make it harder
for the police to catch them.

“Some of us managed to get to the statue and others did not. Saša
Vondra
told me that he and Dana Němcová went together and were arrested around
the National Museum, while Petr Placák says he was sitting in a nearby
cafe, waiting for the right moment, but was caught just as he walked out. I
managed to get there in the end. However, it turned into a rather comical
situation. I laid down my bouquet of flowers. They picked it up and gave it
back to me. Then I did the same thing and again they gave it back. Finally,
when I laid the bouquet down the third time I was arrested. Gradually they
caught all of us around Wenceslas Square and I was taken to Školská
Street for investigation.”

Jana Marco was then sentenced to nine months in prison and remained
incarcerated until October 1989 in the Všehrdy correction facility,
located in north-west Bohemia.

However, the events did not end with the round-up of the main dissenters.
In fact, Palach Week went into public memory as the first truly wide
ranging protest that went on for days. Despite the police crackdowns,
people were constantly coming back and others joining in, often packing
much of Wenceslas Square in the process.

Eager to honour his hero, Jakub Železný went out onto the streets
multiple
times.

Palach Week 1989, photo: Czech Television“I took part on Sunday 15, then Monday 16, Tuesday 17,
Wednesday 18 until Thursday 19. I remember the situation very
well because we were there with my friend and were surprised by the number
people there. Wenceslas Square was crowded by people on the upper part of
the square. There were some police troops present, but I think they were
surprised about the crowd too. We were there, we screamed something. We
were very happy and nothing happened. I think this was the reason why
people came the next day. Arrests took place, Václav Havel and some others
were arrested on Sunday. However, people came back on Monday and then on
Tuesday.

“This was something. This was surprising. This was something new. It
was
not organised. There was no internet, no Facebook, no Instagram. People
were just talking to each other.“

There was also action outside of Prague. In the Moravian capital of Brno,
around 500 people took part in a remembrance mass. Meanwhile, brutal police
crackdowns continued and aside from batons, protesters also had to count on
water cannons.

Even the 15-year-old rebel was seized.

“The police troop was on the line where the tram line in the middle
of
the square is. Suddenly they made a few steps towards the people. I saw it.
I was just clapping a few times. Then, from the other side of Wenceslas
Square, several young guys, not in uniform, came towards us. They came
towards me, beat me down, pushed me down and kicked me. And they just said:
‘We saw you, you bastard! You were clapping. You go with us!’

“Many years later, I was thinking who were they? Because they were
very
young. And I read somewhere that the special, anti-terrorist force, the Red
Berets, who were beating people later on November 17, that they were
testing out how to work in demonstrations during Palach Week in civilian
clothing. Maybe these were the guys from that troop. I don’t know.
Because they took me and handed me over to policemen, telling them: ‘Take
this guy.’”

“Just as before, today’s evening hours were marked by public
gatherings
on Prague’s Wenceslas Square attempting to disturb national peace and
crying out slogans hostile to the state. Their provocations caused major
complications in this part of Prague. Despite repeated calls from members
of the Public Security service to disperse, the protesters did not listen.
Public order units therefore took decisive action. Our correspondent, who
is on location, reports that Wenceslas Square is now again in a state of
peace.”

However, the regime’s handling of protesters caused problems abroad. The
Czechoslovak delegation led by Foreign Minister Jaromír Johanes, was
accused of breaking the Helsinki human rights agreements, while attending
an OSCE conference in Vienna. As foreign media outlets criticised the
crackdowns, the Czechoslovak government defended itself with claims that
the protests were being organised from abroad.

On Wednesday, January 18, two members of an independent peace organisation
met with a representative of Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec, who promised
to hear out their complaints regarding how the police forces were handling
the situation. Public order units were then told not to use force. However,
this only encouraged more people to come, as Jakub Železný recalls.

“And that is why the biggest demonstration took place on Thursday,
because people said: ‘Oh, they stopped beating us on Wednesday, so
let’s join the demonstration tomorrow.’”

Altogether, around 1,400 people were arrested during the Palach Week
protests. Many were also injured in clashes with the police. The ruling
communist government even pushed through legislation that made it possible
to hand out tougher sentences for those who “obstruct the authority of
police officers” and broadcast several appeals from pro-regime minded
members of the public, against similar protests.

Palach Week 1989, photo: Czech Television
Nevertheless, something had changed in the wider public perception. After
being released from prison on May 17, Václav Havel decided to capitalise
on the increased public willingness to show disapproval with the regime.
Together with his colleagues, he penned a petition titled “Několik
vět” [A Few Sentences], whose seven points called for changes including
the release of political prisoners, free assembly and opening up free
discussion. The petitions name was the idea of Jiří Křižan and was
inspired by a manifesto written by Czech reformist writer Ludvík Vaculík
during the Prague Spring, titled “Two Thousand Words”.

Professor Jiří Přibáň from Cardiff University recently wrote an
article
in Právo on the events of Palach Week and their impact.

“It was an extreme success in getting and reaching out towards
mainstream
culture and ordinary citizens out of the dissident and rather limited
community. Palach Week proved that it is possible to get bigger, larger and
more effective political mobilisation. So despite the repression during
Palach Week, or rather because of it, we had ‘Několik vět’ and tens
of thousands of people expressing their revulsion, expressing their anger
and expressing their wish for political and social changes at the end of
the 1980s.”

By the autumn of 1989 the petition had been signed by around 40,000 people
and their names were regularly broadcast on Radio Free Europe and Voice of
America.

Although he died in 1969, many who were there see Jan Palach as the man who
set the road to freedom by his act.

Jana Marco has returned many times to Wenceslas Square since freedom was
won in 1989 to lay her bouquet of flowers.

“Those people that went to pay their respects to Jan Palach in what
started being called Palach Week perhaps went there because they realised
that, since he was capable of such a sacrifice, the least they could do was
come a few times to Wenceslas Square and make their opinion known simply by
taking part in the event. The sacrifice of Jan Palach has such a strong
symbolic meaning that it nudges us to behave strongly in certain
situations.”

Jakub Železný has since taken part in events reminding the public and the
younger generation that did not live through the events of Palach Week, of
the virtue of Jan Palach’s sacrifice. He says he will fight vehemently
against any who try to relativize his sacrifice and the regime that he
opposed.

Jiří Přibáň, photo: Ondřej Tomšů“Do not forget Jan Palach and let us not forget the communist
regime.
This was a stupid, brutal regime. It is written in our law that it was an
illegal regime and so it was.”

Professor Jiří Přibáň sees a call never to accept conditions which are
unbearable.

“It is a victory which is very painful for all of us that survive,
because Palach’s sacrifice tells us that sometimes the living conditions
can be so unjust and unbearable that an individual decides to go and
sacrifice his or her life for the rest of society while the rest of society
decides accepts it as something normal and something possible to adapt to
it. I think it is a call to resistance against all politics of
normalisation and adaptation of one’s life to general conditions of life
as survival.”